Archives for April 2015

I’m writing this post while sitting in a condo down at the Oregon Coast. The wind is blowing outside, the rain is pattering against the windows, and outside through the mist I can see the waves crashing against the rocks. The fireplace is glowing, and the moon is rising in the sky as I relax on the couch still recovering from the intense massage I had this morning.

And I’m not thinking about work. And I love it.

As Product Managers, we often feel like we’re expected to be on-call and available to resolve every little question that comes up, and to provide guidance and insight on a 24-hour, 7-day a week basis. The truth of the matter, however, is that these are expectations that we place on ourselves; these are burdens that we create for ourselves, and that if left unchecked will cause us to collapse upon ourselves, as an overworked, underappreciated, burnt-out husk.

But there are ways that we can create an environment that allows us — in fact, expects us — to take some time for ourselves, to decompress and return to our jobs refreshed and ready to take on the world.

It’s one of the more frustrating parts of being a software Product Manager – you inherit a product that’s been around for awhile, and every time you want to start a new project to change and improve what’s already there, some nasty little issue crops up and takes the spotlight. Maybe the platform was never really designed to scale, maybe some customer is doing something outside the original intent of the product, or maybe the technology is just old and starting to crumble around the edges.

Regardless of the specifics, inevitably the primary cause of these issues is a mountain of technical debt that’s been built up by the teams working on the product over the course of its lifecycle — the shortcuts taken in the name of getting product shipped, the design corners skimmed because it was seen as an “edge case” three years ago, or even the architectural limits imposed by budget or resource constraints.

Regardless, once you realize what’s causing these issues, you need a plan to attack and mitigate the harm that these limitations are causing you — and that’s where you good old friend, The Clever PM, has a few tricks up his sleeve…